How to remember facts. In speaking of this phase of memory, we use
the word fact in the sense of an ascertained item of knowledge, rather than
in the sense of a happening, et cetera. In this sense, the
memory of facts is the ability to store away and recollect items of knowledge bearing
upon some particular thing under consideration. If we are considering the subject of horse,
the facts that we wish to remember are the various items of information and
knowledge regarding the horse that we have acquired during our experience, facts that we
have seen, heard, or read regarding the animal in question, and to
that which concerns it. We are continually acquiring items of information regarding all kinds
of subjects, and yet when we wish to collect them, we oft and
find the task rather difficult, even though the original impressions were quite clear.
The difficulty is largely due to the fact that the various facts are associated in
our minds only by contiguity in time or place, or both, the associations
of relation being lacking. In other words, we have not properly classified and
indexed our bits of information, and do not know where to begin to search
for them. It is like the confusion of the businessman who kept all his
papers in a barrel without index or order. He knew that they were all
there, but he had hard work to find any one of them when it
was required. Or we are like the compositor whose type has become pied and
then thrown into a big box. When he attempts to set up a book
page, he will find it very difficult, if not impossible, whereas if
each letter were in its proper box, he would set up the page in
a short time. This matter of association by relation is one of the most
important things in the whole subject of thought, and the degree of correct and
deficient thinking depends materially upon it. It does not suffice us to merely know
a thing. We must know where to find it when we want it.
As old Judge Sharswood of Pennsylvania once said, it is not so much to
know the law as to know where to find it. K says over the
associations formed by contiguity in time or space, we have but little control.
They are in a manner accidental, depending upon the order in which the objects
present themselves to the mind. On the other hand, association by similarity is
largely put in our own power, for we in a measure, select those
objects that are to be associated and bring them together in the mind. We
must be careful, however, only to associate together such things as we wish
to be associated together and to recall each other. And the associations we form
should be based on fundamental and essential and not upon mere, superficial or casual
resemblances. When things are associated by their accidental and not by their essential qualities,
by their superficial and not by their fundamental relations, they will not be
available when wanted and will be of little real use. When we associate what
is new with what most nearly resembles it in the mind, already we give
it its proper place in our fabric of fire by means of association. By
similarity. We tie up our ideas, as it were, in separate bundles.
And it is of the utmost importance that all the ideas that most nearly
resemble each other be in one bundle. The best way to acquire correct associations,
and many of them. For a separate fact that you wish to store
away so that it may be recollected when needed. Some useful bit of information
or interesting bit of knowledge that may come in handy later on is to analyze
it and its relations. This may be done by asking yourself questions about it,
each thing that you associate it with in your answers being just one additional
cross index, whereby you may find it readily when you want it. As
k says, the principle of asking questions and obtaining answers to them may be
said to characterize all intellectual effort. This is the method by which Socrates and
Plato drew out the knowledge of their pupils, filling in the gaps and attaching
new facts to those already known. When you wish to so consider a fact,
ask yourself the following questions about it. One where did it come from
or originate? Two? What caused it? Three? What history or record
has it? Four? What are its attributes, qualities, and characteristics?
Five? What things can I most readily associate with it? What is it
like? Six? What is it good for? How may it be used?
What can I do with it? Seven? What does it prove?
What can be deduced from it? Eight? What are its natural results?
What happens because of it? Nine? What is its future? And its
natural or probable end or finish? Ten? What do I think of it
on the whole. What are my general impressions regarding it? Eleven? What
do I know about it in the way of general information? Twelve? What
have I heard about it? And from whom? And when? If you
will take the trouble to put any fact through the above rigid examination, you
will not only attach it to hundreds of convenient and familiar other facts, so
that you will remember it readily upon occasion, but you will also create a
new subject of general information in your mind, of which this particular fact will
be the central thought. Similar systems of analysis have been published and sold by
various teachers at high prices, and many men have considered that the results justified
the expenditure. So do not pass it by lightly. The more other facts
that you manage to associate with any one fact, the more pegs will you
have to hang your facts upon. The more loose ends will you have whereby
to pull that fact into the field of consciousness. The more cross indexes will
you have whereby you may run down the fact when you need it. The
more associations you attached to a fact, the more meaning does that fact have
for you, and the more interest will be created regarding it In your mind.
Moreover, by so doing, you make very probable the automatic or involuntary
recollection of that fact when you are thinking of some of its associated subjects.
That is, it will come into your mind now tuly in connection with something
else in a that reminds me fashion, and the oftener that you are involuntarily
reminded of it, the clearer and deeper does its impression become on the records
of your memory. The oftener you use a fact, the easier does it
become to recall it when needed. The favorite pen of a man is always
at his hand in a remembered position, while the less used eraser or similar
thing has to be searched for, often without success. And the more associations
that you bestow upon a fact, the oftener it is likely to be used.
Another point to be remembered is that the future association of a fact depends
very much upon your system of filing away facts. If you will think of
this when endeavoring to store away a fact for future reference, you will be
very apt to find the best mental pigeon hole for it. File it away
with the thing it most resembles, or to which it has the most familiar
relationship. The child does this involuntarily. It is nature's own way. For
instance, the child sees a zebra, it files away that animal as a
donkey with stripes, a giraffe as a long necked horse, a camel as
a horse with long crooked legs, long neck, and humps on its back.
The child always attaches its new knowledge or fact onto some familiar fact or
a bit of knowledge. Sometimes the result is startling, but the child remembers
by means of it. Nevertheless, the grown up children will do well to
build similar connecting links of memory, attach the new things to some old familiar
thing. It is easy when you once have the knack of it. The
table of questions, given a little farther back, will bring to mind many
connecting links. Use them. If you need any proof of the importance of
association by relation, and of the laws governing its action, you have but
to recall the ordinary train of thought or train of images in the mind of
which we become conscious when we are daydreaming or indulging in revery, or even
in general thought regarding any subject. You will see that every mental image or
idea or recollection is associated with and connected to the preceding thought. And the
one following it. It is a chain that is endless until something breaks into
the subject from out side. A fact flashes into your mind, apparently from
space, and without any reference to anything else. In such cases you will
find that it occurs either because you had previously set your subconscious mentality at work
upon some problem or a bit of recollection, and the flash was the belated
and delayed result, or else that the fact came into your mind because of
its association with some other fact, which in turn came from a precedent one.
And so on. You hear a distant railroad whistle, and you think
of a train, then of a journey, then of some distant place,
then of someone in that place, Then of some event in the life of
that person, Then of a similar event in the life of another person,
Then of that other person, Then of his or her brother, then of
that brother's last business venture, then of that business, then of some other
business resembling it, Then of some people in that other business, Then of
their dealings with a man you know, Then of the fact that another man
of a similar name to the last man owes you some money, then of
your determination to get that money. Then you make a memorandum to place the
claim in the hands of a lawyer to see whether it cannot be collected.
Now, although the man was execution proof last year from distant locomotive whistle to
the possible collection of the account, and yet the links forgotten. The man
will say that he just happened to think of the debtor, or that it
somehow flashed right into my mind, et cetera. But it was nothing but
the law of association. That's all. Moreover, you will now find that
whenever you here mentioned the term association of mental ideas, etc. You will
remember the above illustration, or part of it. We have forged a new
link in the chain of association for you, and years from now it will
appear in your thoughts.